Collection
Miroslav Tichý
1926 Born in Kyjov, Czech Republic 1945-1948 Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, Czech Republic
After studying at the Academy of Arts in Prague, Miroslav Tichý withdrew to a life in isolation in his hometown of Kyjov, Moravia, Czech Republic. In the late 1950s he quitted painting and became a distinctive Diogenes-like figure. From the end of the 1960s he began to take photographs mainly of local women, in part with cameras he made by hand.
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Collection
Artists for Tichy – Tichy for artists
The Tichy Ocean Foundation’s “Artists for Tichy — Tichy for Artists” collection is unique. (Note: the foundation’s name is a pun in Czech: Tichý Oceán means “Pacific Ocean”.) It is unique because of its origins. It came into being and is still going on as an exchange. Artists from all over the world exchange their works of art for the photography of Miroslav Tichý. The exchange itself started with Tichý: in 1992, when the famous Austrian Arnulf Rainer visited him in Kyjov, Tichý refused to sell anything to him. But he had nothing against an exchange. Since this time, a wide range of popular, world-renowned, lesser known, and even unknown artists have exchanged their works for Tichý’s photographs. And that’s how this diverse collection got started.